Blog Index

This week’s main blog discussions include … The CrowdStrike issue and its impact on Microsoft I was talking with my 8 year-old son and said that the whole world had just stopped. He asked what do you mean? I replied that everything stopped. Airlines, banks, shops, trains, hospitals and more. He asked what happened? I…

This week’s main blog discussions include … The CIO managing a $17 billion budget and $10 trillion of transactions PER DAY I just spotted a great article about JPMorgan’s CIO who manages a $17 billion budget (last time I looked, it was $11 billion). That sort of budget makes most fintechs look like small fry….

This week’s main blog discussions include … July 4th? It’s bank independence day! July 4 is always when my American friends give Britain the middle finger and proudly celebrate Paul Revere’s midnight ride that led to Independence Day on July 4, 1776. Great … but what about bank independence day? Most central banks, including the…

The main blog discussions this week include … A financial offer to die for I attended a meeting this week presenting a variety of startups and their ideas. All of them were great, but one stood out for me: Fairwill. Obviously playing on the word farewell, Fairwill provides an exit policy for humans … as…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Weaponising bank branch closures The UK has an election in July. The likely winner is the left-of-centre Labour Party, after 14 years of the righter wing Conservative Party. The new leader will be Sir Kier Starmer, a guy described as a “political robot”. Nevertheless, his party has created a…

This week’s main blog discussions include … What the Finternet? The Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the guys who create the Basel rules and control much of the way the global banking system works, released a paper the other day about the Finternet: “the financial system for the future”. The idea is that all of…

This week’s main blog discussions include … What’s hot and what’s not in fintech? In a long strategy session yesterday, we were trying to list the things that are hot and what’s not in fintech. So, what’s hot? Obviously crypto and AI. However, those are the headline buckets, what’s the detail? The detail is the…

The main blog discussions this week include … One account to rule them all? I was having a chat with some friends about the good old days, where everything was domestic and local. We had passbooks, cheques, cash and branches. Ah, those were the days. Life was simple, money was all in one place and…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Is this the bank that JK Rowling based Gringotts on? I found a great interview the other day with Bella Hoare, a partner and director at the world’s oldest privately owned bank, C Hoare and Co. The bank has been run by the Hoare family for 12 generations,…

This week’s main blog discussions include … What would Taylor Swift’s bank look like? Trust and money and day-to-day life go hand-in-hand. It’s all about who you deal with, how and the outcomes. Recently, I’ve lost trust with Apple, my bank, my friend and my brother. That’s pretty sad, isn’t it? But who do I…